I've spent quite a lot of time this past weekend developing an engaging and immersive, yet simple, attack system based on the CC rules. Rather than the point n shoot method FFG came up with, players will be fighting over planets without the knowledge of their opponents fleet movements until they are already engaged in combat.

I've adopted the troop movements from Diplomacy into the campaign. During the Fleet Movement phase, players will move their fleets around the sector. Each fleet will be given a code name, and everything else is hidden. Each fleet can be moved once and is recorded. Once all movements have been recorded, each team exchanges and compares where fleets are. If 2 players reveal they moved to the same planet, they move to the Combat Phase and play a game. I am writing the rules based on an honor system, so players should not cheat. However, there is always room for a GM, as there is in Diplomacy. I'll give more details on the map and fleet movements in a different thread.

Combat Phase

1. After you discover your fleet is engaged with the enemy, you reveal fleet points. If a fleet is at least 4X greater than the opposing force, the smaller fleet is destroyed. If both players agree, a game can be played.
   1. This is important so you don't have 400 vs 50 points. That's a waste of time and playing every small engagement would stretch the campaign for months.
2. Assuming a game will be played, the player with the lower points can choose who is 1st or 2nd, and you play until one player loses. No round limit. Play until someone loses everything or retreats.
   1. Some objectives will be modified to account for the new victory rules, since you no longer play for points. More on that in the future.
3. During set up, the only thing revealed are ships. Only the ships are deployed. Squads are limited to each ships Squad command and you do not deploy them until a ship activates. All upgrades, except titles, and squads are hidden until revealed. An upgrade is revealed when it is used for the first time. Recording your opponents upgrades and squads is allowed and encouraged.
   1. This is to simulate intel you gain during a fight. It's not possible to know the crew, modifications, or weapon load outs of every ship when you see it.
   2. Squads are hidden because they are being transported in ships. RLB will allow squads to deploy, move, and attack in the same activation, compared to the normal deploy unactivated.

Boarding

This is one of the more exciting mechanics I have come up with. It also is one of the hardest to pull off. You will be allowed to capture enemy ship and all hardware attached. The crew dies a tragic death and you become the owner of a new ship! Titles included.

I drew inspiration from Rogue One, where Vader disables the MC75 before boarding it and implemented that into the game.

1. When a ship reaches it's hull value in damage, it is disabled, not destroyed. A disabled ship loses all shields, does not activate until it is the last ship, moves forward 1, cannot attack, or resolve commands.
   1. It's literally a ship flying through space with no guidance in the middle of a battle. Disabled ships follow flotilla ramming rules, except when they overlap another disabled ship.
2. If the ship reaches double its hull in damage, it is destroyed.
   1. Both players can attack disabled ships, one to destroy, the other to prevent boarding.
3. Once you disable a ship, you can now board it with the 2 boarding cards we currently have: Engineers and Troopers. To capture a ship, you must equal or exceed its command with boarding points.
   1. This means you can take 3 HH and capture an ISD, or an AF to capture an ISD. If you board before the ship is disabled, you resolve the normal boarding effect.

If you win the battle, you get to keep your spoils. Take it back to the ship yard to get repaired, and you can now play Ackbar with Arqs, or Admo with Screed. You also capture all fighters still on board the ship. Howlrunner with Z-95s or Tie/D with Toryn! But you can't capture aces. They also die...tragically.

This is not meant to be an easy task and I don't want the campaign to focus around capturing enemy ships. But I also want to allow the opportunity to let players do what they want with their fleets.

Retreating

Retreating will be an important component of the game since you are fighting to the bitter end. The rules are pretty simple.

1. A ship can announce it is retreating to hyperspace when it activates. It discards its command dial. It makes no attacks and moves forward 1. If you overlap a ship or obstacle, retreat is cancelled.
   1. Retreating during a fight is risky. Trajectories must be lined up and power diverted to the hyperdrive.
2. Tractor Beams and G-8 can prevent a ship from retreating. If a ship is targeted by either one, retreat is cancelled, or it is not allowed to retreat, until the end of the round.
   1. I think FFG missed the mark with their hyper space retreat. Tractor Beams should be stopping ships.
3. Interdictors can exert a Gravity Well via Grav Well Projector. Each round, an Interdictor can remove the grav token and place a new one. Every ship at range 3 of the token cannot retreat. This token can be placed anywhere on the board.
   1. Not sure on the balance of this yet. I'm worried every Imp fleet will have an Interdictor and might implement a 1 per player rule. Rebels have to capture it, but still have access to Tractor Beams.

Let me know what you guys think. I'm always looking for feedback and want to make this as immersive as possible. The "immersion rules" will also scale back, so you can choose to go all in, or stick with the normal CC rules.

My other content relating to the campaign:

Reserved

This sounds incredible I think that the best way to balance the Interdictor rule is to make either the distance from the ship or have only 1 token put no matter how many interdictors

What happens to disabled ships that are neither boarded nor destroyed?

The other thing that I would think is interesting is if you let people transfer ships to keep the builds interesting. You still have to follow a 400 point list rule, but after each round, the plays can throw all the uniques into a pile and reselect what they want for their fleets. So that way, more than one person in a campaign can play demo, and you never know who has him. This will also allow you to potentially limit the dictor to only 2 for the entire game. You need to be careful which fleet has this experimental ship and not let it fall into enemy hands but can move from fleet to fleet as needed.

4 minutes ago, svelok said:

What happens to disabled ships that are neither boarded nor destroyed?

If you own the ship and you win, it stays alive. You'll have to return it to a shipyard for repairs.

If your opponent owns the ship and you win, it is destroyed.

14 minutes ago, Visovics said:

This sounds incredible I think that the best way to balance the Interdictor rule is to make either the distance from the ship or have only 1 token put no matter how many interdictors

Yea I could drop the range back to 2 or close.

5 minutes ago, ripper998 said:

The other thing that I would think is interesting is if you let people transfer ships to keep the builds interesting. You still have to follow a 400 point list rule, but after each round, the plays can throw all the uniques into a pile and reselect what they want for their fleets. So that way, more than one person in a campaign can play demo, and you never know who has him. This will also allow you to potentially limit the dictor to only 2 for the entire game. You need to be careful which fleet has this experimental ship and not let it fall into enemy hands but can move from fleet to fleet as needed.

You can exchange ships and upgrades between players, but you have to move your fleets to a planet to do so. This can allow players to create a supply line if they want, or to simply change things up.

Fleets will have no point limit, so I guess you could go all in on one player, but you also have no idea where your opponents shipyards are hiding and you only have 1 combat ready fleet against 6 smaller ones. Each player will also be assigned to a sector and be fighting for that sector 1v1. You can move into a new one if you want to help an ally or exchange upgrades, but you risk removing forces from your sector.

I'm going for full immersion with logical rules. While your suggestion is interesting, it breaks the immersion by allowing ships and upgrades to transport instantly around the game. I'm looking for an Empire at War style of play.

You mention Boarding being inspired by the ending scene in Rogue One... Well, I'm reading Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp, and in the opening chapter, Vader and a squadron of V-Wings attack a stolen cargo freighter. I'll spoiler tag the details, but what happens is so awesome that it hooked me right away.

I think it would be cool to add a boarding mechanic via an upgrade card to Lambda Shuttle squadron, and other squadrons capable of carrying a boarding party. I think it would be SUPER BADASS to have that kind of upgrade added to Vader himself.

Would this work with Imperial Assault?

On ‎11‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 0:09 PM, Undeadguy said:

You can exchange ships and upgrades between players, but you have to move your fleets to a planet to do so. This can allow players to create a supply line if they want, or to simply change things up.

Fleets will have no point limit, so I guess you could go all in on one player, but you also have no idea where your opponents shipyards are hiding and you only have 1 combat ready fleet against 6 smaller ones. Each player will also be assigned to a sector and be fighting for that sector 1v1. You can move into a new one if you want to help an ally or exchange upgrades, but you risk removing forces from your sector.

I'm going for full immersion with logical rules. While your suggestion is interesting, it breaks the immersion by allowing ships and upgrades to transport instantly around the game. I'm looking for an Empire at War style of play.

Instead of the fleets having to meet up, why not just have the traded 'goods' out of use for a turn? Various Rebel cells trade or send supplies/resources to one another, but they don't send their entire force, just the resources they intend to send.

I have resources to spare, and don't really have a need for these 2 Y-wings anymore and I have an extra GR75, so I'm going to send them to you. They are out of my fleet this turn, and aren't available to you till next turn. That turn where they don't exist in any fleet is the transport time.

Could complicate it a little by stating there has to be a clear path on that 2nd turn. If the transportation path is cut off, then the resources are intercepted (large enough shipments could trigger combat, smaller shipments might just get destroyed).

I'd probably tweek the boarding rules a little also. Half hull points to destroy (otherwise a large ship like an ISD is pretty difficult to remove). Floaters drift like you said straight ahead at speed 1. If they go off the board, they are lost (drift into asteroids, or fall into a planets gravitational pull, etc). You can board them, and take command of them in battle. When you gain command of them, you give them the appropriate order stack. An engineering order repairs engines. Further repairs can activate shields (cannot move shields or repair damage), and they are unable to fire. So you want to board before they sail off the table, get them repaired, and then get them away from the enemy. Floater phase happens after squadron phase and includes boarded floaters.

The biggest issue I have is that after the battle is over, salvaging ships should be easy...you have time and no fear of combat. So any unboarded floaters on the field can be salvaged by the winner (including ships that would normally be lost). However you must roll to determine if the ship is salvageable. Set the difficulty as you see fit, but a hit on the red die would seem to make sense. Hit on a blue for a better chance if you see fit. Accuracy on a red to make it happen less. Salvaging a floater takes resources to restore to working order however, so it's not just an easy way to bulk up your fleet...you still need to repair these ships. Salvaging a fleet of ships is meaningless if you can't repair them. I'd also strip floaters of all equipment. That stuff got roughed up too much in the battle to recover.

Salvaged ships take half value to repair to scarred status. Half value again to get to full status. Cannot happen in one round. This has to take 2 rounds to step through the repair process. "So why salvage your own destroyed ships if it cost the same to just buy new?" Because maybe you really need to get some more firepower in your fleet, and you are willing to risk fighting with scarred ships. You can repair two salvaged CR90s to scarred status, or buy 1 new.

I could see people really taking the time and shots to finish off some ships this way. I'm going to retreat, but I don't want them to get that CR90 or hammerhead, so I'm going to take some parting shots at them in order to remove them from the board.

59 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

Instead of the fleets having to meet up, why not just have the traded 'goods' out of use for a turn? Various Rebel cells trade or send supplies/resources to one another, but they don't send their entire force, just the resources they intend to send.

I have resources to spare, and don't really have a need for these 2 Y-wings anymore and I have an extra GR75, so I'm going to send them to you. They are out of my fleet this turn, and aren't available to you till next turn. That turn where they don't exist in any fleet is the transport time.

Could complicate it a little by stating there has to be a clear path on that 2nd turn. If the transportation path is cut off, then the resources are intercepted (large enough shipments could trigger combat, smaller shipments might just get destroyed).

I'd probably tweek the boarding rules a little also. Half hull points to destroy (otherwise a large ship like an ISD is pretty difficult to remove). Floaters drift like you said straight ahead at speed 1. If they go off the board, they are lost (drift into asteroids, or fall into a planets gravitational pull, etc). You can board them, and take command of them in battle. When you gain command of them, you give them the appropriate order stack. An engineering order repairs engines. Further repairs can activate shields (cannot move shields or repair damage), and they are unable to fire. So you want to board before they sail off the table, get them repaired, and then get them away from the enemy. Floater phase happens after squadron phase and includes boarded floaters.

The biggest issue I have is that after the battle is over, salvaging ships should be easy...you have time and no fear of combat. So any unboarded floaters on the field can be salvaged by the winner (including ships that would normally be lost). However you must roll to determine if the ship is salvageable. Set the difficulty as you see fit, but a hit on the red die would seem to make sense. Hit on a blue for a better chance if you see fit. Accuracy on a red to make it happen less. Salvaging a floater takes resources to restore to working order however, so it's not just an easy way to bulk up your fleet...you still need to repair these ships. Salvaging a fleet of ships is meaningless if you can't repair them. I'd also strip floaters of all equipment. That stuff got roughed up too much in the battle to recover.

Salvaged ships take half value to repair to scarred status. Half value again to get to full status. Cannot happen in one round. This has to take 2 rounds to step through the repair process. "So why salvage your own destroyed ships if it cost the same to just buy new?" Because maybe you really need to get some more firepower in your fleet, and you are willing to risk fighting with scarred ships. You can repair two salvaged CR90s to scarred status, or buy 1 new.

I could see people really taking the time and shots to finish off some ships this way. I'm going to retreat, but I don't want them to get that CR90 or hammerhead, so I'm going to take some parting shots at them in order to remove them from the board.

The trade idea is good. I might use that. What I had already planned, but not revealed yet, is ships can carry upgrades and squads, like the GR-75, and in fact I was going to have flotillas be the main way to move things around. They are transports after all, and while they can't equip the gear they carry, they can shuttle them to other ships. The reason for meeting up to exchange is to allow your opponent an opportunity to stumble upon a convoy and take the equipment, and to make players commit their ships by documenting their fleet log and movements. Your opponent knows 2 players moved to a planet, likely to exchange things, rather than a behind closed door shuffle. It's a soft way to prevent cheating by bouncing upgrades around every round.

Boarding is meant to be difficult. With unlimited rounds, there really shouldn't be a reason why you can't take down a disabled ISD. It's 11 damage that can't be mitigated in any way. You do bring up a good point about the table edge though. I'll have to think of something to fix that.

Salvaging might add too much complexity without adding more depth. Same for repairing mid game. I thought about it, but decided against it because it slows down game play. Armada is already slow, but now you have to keep track of a ship you captured from your opponent and it's current operational status. I actually was going to have Repair Crews be the vital upgrade that can restore a disabled ship, but at 1 hull, it doesn't really matter.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in the OP, but if you have an unused boarding card at the end of the battle, you can claim a ship equal to the command value. So an AF with BT can claim any ship that is disabled after the battle. And the battle ends when a player has no ships to activate. So you might end the game with a bunch of disabled ships on both sides.

I'm not sure how stripping upgrades would fit the lore. Imperials don't really have a need to salvage Rebel ships, and any of their ships disabled are not destroyed if they win the fight. Rebels would strip ships down, but some equipment doesn't make sense. RLB, RBD, EHB, RS. And there will still be active crew on board to fight, which is why the boarding upgrades are important. They are a skilled group of soldiers who specialize in boarding tactics, but your average mechanic is not.

I haven't revealed the Repair mechanic yet, but I did away with scarring. If a ship is destroyed during a game, it's gone for good. This is why disabling is important because it adds a small chance to keep ships alive. If a ship is disabled, you will need to take it to your shipyard for repairs. If you end up fighting again, it will have less hull and be destroyed instead of disabled. I want the game to be more fast paced with fleets evolving, rather than being stuck with your initial fleet you buy. It's not fun getting rolled every game and having to spend all your money repairing.

I'll also be adding sliding rules. So if you can pick how far you want to modify the base CC game. If you really like the vanilla scarring and repairing, you can. If you want my rule set, well you already have it. If you want something in between where you can salvage ships and repair to scar them, and repair again to bring them to full, I'll add it. My goal here is to make a better CC experience. IMO, making the game more immersive and bound to lore means a better experience. But I also know people won't want that and will want to incorporate some of the ideas I have with CC, and maybe mix in their own ideas too.

Let me know what you want to see and I'll do my best.

2 hours ago, Tvboy said:

Would this work with Imperial Assault?

I've never played IA so I don't know the rules. Once Legion drops I am going to create incorporate the 2 games so you manage an army and a fleet. Both will play a vital role in capturing planets and securing resources. I don't see why the Legion portion can't be adapted to IA, but I won't be able to provide any specific details, mainly concepts of how everything works together.

For example: You generate 200 resources per round to be spent on your army. I already know the point cost of the troops in Legion, so I can balance for that. I don't know IA, so I can't tell you how much resources you should generate per round to create a balanced experience. But I can tell you IA/Legion must be transported with a fleet, and if the fleet is destroyed the army is destroyed along with it. And capturing planets allows you to build a base, which could unlock different things.

Needs rules for scuttling ships.

The Empire would go to great lengths to keeps ISD from falling in the hands of the rebels.

(they also carried like 10,000 stormtroopers around)

1 hour ago, Zrob314 said:

Needs rules for scuttling ships.

The Empire would go to great lengths to keeps ISD from falling in the hands of the rebels.

(they also carried like 10,000 stormtroopers around)

Ok, this is huge. The remaining crew on a disabled ship should be able to do something. Just examples, but...

Surrender: Officers, commanders, weapons team, and support teams become prisoners of the enemy, and can potentially be exchanged for enemy prisoners. Ship and all other upgrades remain to be claimed by the winner of the battle.

Scuttle: Ship is destroyed in a number of rounds equal to it's engineering value, Officers, commanders, weapons team, and support teams are placed as tokens, at distance 1, to represent escape pods. The tokens can be recovered, at the start of any activation of a non disabled ship, at distance 1. If claimed by the enemy, they become prisoners of the enemy, and can potentially be exchanged for enemy prisoners. Any unclaimed tokens may be claimed by the winner of the battle. Ship and all other upgrades lost.

Self destruct: Ship and all upgrades are lost in the end phase of the next turn.

Hold: ship remains disabled.

Prisoners would need to be exchanged in the same manner with an enemy transport as other upgrades are with other Friendly fleets. Nothing stopping either side from setting a trap and sending a full fleet to ambush a prisoner exchange transport. But all is fair in war.

@Undeadguy This is a sweet idea!

28 minutes ago, cynanbloodbane said:

Ok, this is huge. The remaining crew on a disabled ship should be able to do something. Just examples, but...

Surrender: Officers, commanders, weapons team, and support teams become prisoners of the enemy, and can potentially be exchanged for enemy prisoners. Ship and all other upgrades remain to be claimed by the winner of the battle.

Scuttle: Ship is destroyed in a number of rounds equal to it's engineering value, Officers, commanders, weapons team, and support teams are placed as tokens, at distance 1, to represent escape pods. The tokens can be recovered, at the start of any activation of a non disabled ship, at distance 1. If claimed by the enemy, they become prisoners of the enemy, and can potentially be exchanged for enemy prisoners. Any unclaimed tokens may be claimed by the winner of the battle. Ship and all other upgrades lost.

Self destruct: Ship and all upgrades are lost in the end phase of the next turn.

Hold: ship remains disabled.

Prisoners would need to be exchanged in the same manner with an enemy transport as other upgrades are with other Friendly fleets. Nothing stopping either side from setting a trap and sending a full fleet to ambush a prisoner exchange transport. But all is fair in war.

@Undeadguy This is a sweet idea!

Ha this crossed my mind as well. That's why you can attack your own ships.

I like your scuttle idea more than mine, and I thought about doing escape pods in the same way you said. I decided against it because it's cumbersome on the board. You can end up with a lot of tokens. Might represent all the escape pods with 1 token per ship.

Not sure about prisoners. I can add it as an extra rule, but it seems hard to implement. You end up carrying around officers and teams just to exchange them for the same upgrade, but you bought it initially. I could see it more likely with uniques and aces, but I'd think the Empire would execute them rather than exchange them.

In regards to the ISD complement of troops, my head canon has a disabled ISD much like the MC75 after Vader has his way with it. Hull breaches, structural damage, compartment fires, etc. You won't have a full complement of soldiers to repel invaders who also have support from the rest of the fleet.

Okay, here's what I found for what an ISD is carrying:

Crew: Enlisted (27,850), Stormtroopers (9,700), Officers (9,235)

That's the Star Wars databank so that's as close to accurate as made up stuff can be.

An MC80 or a Liberty carries a crew of 5000 with up to 10,000 more people if it's in pleasure cruise mode (Wookipedia but best I can find)

So, even if the ship is crippled....and a ship that size can still have a whole lot of people in it if it is crippled....isn't going to really get taken over easy by a few dudes.

Let's say it loses 20% of its people in getting crippled. That's still 30,000 trained soldiers on board. Twice the entire crew of an MC80. The boarding party has to enter the ship at choke points and the defenders can decide how they're going to fight.

Conversely in the Battle of Scarif the boarding party had to get a short distance and the defenders had hold off invaders long enough to get the tapes to the Tantive IV so it could get away. The invading team also had Darth Vader.

In the Battle of Tattooine the Devastator (edited) captured the Tantive IV which had a total complement of about 100 people including non combatant passengers.

* Devastator